Folder Level Delete Malfing???, Emptying from Folder Navigator No Worky Options

[Craig]

Well, this is embarrassing. After blowing hot air here advising folks on how to use the Folder Navigator to empty stuffed Held Mail and Trash folders, I'm finding that exactly that feature is malfunctioning.

Like this,

1. Click on the page top Folders icon.
2. Expand the folder tree and select a folder to empty, Held Mail or Trash, either one.
3. Select Empty Folder(s) from the drop down choice list.
4. Wait..

Now, either two things happen now:

1. Process times out with a message like "IMAP connection to server lost", or
2. Process completes, but when you open the folder the removed messages still appear but have a strikout line through'em and a background color on each message row. I think it's green, but my color vision is worse than most..

And there it is. Opening the folder nav view again, logging out and back in, switching folders, none of these seem to make the messages go away.

I'm doing this on a buddy's account to help him out, and he's got something like 5000 messages in Held Mail and amost 10,000 in Trash now.

Can I get some help here? Much thanks in advance.

[Jeff G.]

For the Trash, have you tried opening that Folder, scrolling to the right, and clicking the "Empty Trash folder" Link that is under the number of Messages and above the Size Column?

For the other folders, have you tried opening the folders, selecting all, and clicking Delete?

Thanks!

[Craig]

For the Trash, have you tried opening that Folder, scrolling to the right, and clicking the "Empty Trash folder" Link that is under the number of Messages and above the Size Column?

Yep, I have. Usually we just get an error message saying something like

CODE

IMAP connection broken (server response)

This is after a long delay, I since, I guess, there are many messages to process. But, if you cannot manually empty a hugely stuffed trash folder, what else can a user do?

Here's a usual result of trying to empty the Held Mail folder:

CODE

166 messages have been reported as spam to SpamCop.
There was an error deleting messages from the folder "Held Mail". This is what the server said: [CLOSED] IMAP connection broken (server response)
166 message(s) have been deleted.

Then, open the Held Mail folder, and the messages are still there. What makes this even more frustrating is that it is not consistant; if I bang on it by going back again and again, selecting all and deleting, sometimes it seems to work.

For the other folders, have you tried opening the folders, selecting all, and clicking Delete?

Yes, many many times.

Sometimes the result is even more entertaining, the system returns a 'Trash emptied' message, and then the New/Total folder nav totals read 0/nothing! Yes, the right column total is just empty. Then, refresh the Folder Nav page, and the original pre-emptying totals are there again!!! Let me repeat this, I empty the folder, and the messages do not go away! This is, like, most user unfriendly.

This account, my buddy who I'm helping here, is getting tons of spam, and TONS of bogus trojan bounces. If he goes away for two days, he's got thousands. With the system reluctant to delete, it's become very difficult for him.

Of course, as the one who recommended spamcop, it's not making me very happy either.. HALP!!!

This post has been edited by Craig: Feb 13 2004, 03:16 PM

[Jeff G.]

Have you tried using a real IMAP client like OE to manage that Trash Folder? This works well for me, as I already use OE to drag spam to my Held Mail Folder. Please see my Guide to accessing SpamCop email using OE and IMAP for details. Thanks!

[Craig]

Yes, in fact I just spend a couple of hours doing this. Not with OE but with Eudora on this machine. Normally, for my own spamcop mail account use IMAP on Eudora and it works great, alternating between Eudora and the webmail to do the reporting.

But, for this friend's account, after spending TIME downloading and deleting around 10,000 trash folder messages alone, they are still there!

I finally managed to empty his Held Messages folder. That only took a couple of hours. If I can just clear out his Trash, it will be good. What's going to happen next time he goes away for a few days and the system won't let him delete another ten thousand held messages, well I dunno.

[Jeff G.]

Does Eudora support getting only the headers from an IMAP account, like OE does? That would certainly streamline the resolution.

Webmail does certainly can have timeout issues with 10,000 messages in a folder.

[Craig]

Does Eudora support getting only the headers from an IMAP account, like OE does? That would certainly streamline the resolution.

Yes, and I usually keep it configured to download headers only. But, iirc, deleting the headers only just causes some flag to switch on the 'deleted' messages, it seems. They don't go away. If you go into the SpamCop webmail, they're still there, but shown as 'deleted' with a strikeout line through each header. Getting them out of their folder sometimes can be done by selecting and moving them to trash, where sometimes they can be finally deleted.

I repeat 'sometimes' because sometimes it does not work.

The whole process requires multiple extraneous steps, and it makes more sense to either a) complete the full msg download to the local client and delete there, or (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif) open the webmail and bang on them there. I havn't tried to do the local delete of headers only in awhile, since the initial trial results were not helpful. Perhaps it works now. fwiw, it does work normally for me to move mail between server folders by draging the headers. Don't know if it would work with a bloated box though..

Webmail does certainly can have timeout issues with 10,000 messages in a folder.

Boy howdy. However, the interaction is not between the local client and the host, but rather between SpamCop servers, isn't it? Why should it time out after ten minutes?

Anyway, I FINALLY managed to really get rid of the thousands of Held and Trash folder messages in this guy's account. When I left it last night (this morning), there were tons of those damn strikeout messages. Not one of the deleted from Trash messages disappeared. I finally left it and went off on a bleary eyed day to do other things. Now, about ten ours later, I logged into his account again, and almost fell to my knees in gratitude to see that the Trash folder was empty and Held Mail folder had only some new spam.

[winge]This was a frustrating experience, and now I understand why this friend of mine keep complaining that he just could not get rid of SpamCop Mail Trash and Held Mail. [/winge]

He is inordinately cursed with far more bogus virii bounce mail and other spam. Thousands a day sometimes. A large amount of it gets through to his In box, even though we've lowered his Spam Assassin threshold. Last night I added the sbl.spamhaus.org black list to his config, so now he's got at 4, and bl.spamcop.net/sbl.spamhaus.org blacklists working. STILL, when I logged in ten hours after setting the extra blacklist, there were something like ten real spams in his In box, not to mention the annoying bogus virus bounces.

So,

• The 14 day Held Mail autodelete doesn't seem to work, as I found stuff in there 17 days old.
• The inconsistant results on attempting Trash emptying, and the failures in deleting Held Mail are both real issues.
• There seems to be no practical way to deal with bloated Held Mail or Trash mailboxes. And given the volume of spam/crap this guy's getting, he needs one.

It would be tremendously gratifying if someone on the SpamCop team would verify that this is a bug, and tell us that there's a resolution on the way.

I also sometimes travel, and cannot log in to webmail every day just to clear Held Mail. If I had the volume of spam that my friend gets, and the same results with resolution attempts, I would have flipped, probably.

So, any help from SpamCop personnel on this one will be greatly appreciated!(IMG:style_emoticons/default/wub.gif)

[Craig]

Oh, uh, by the way, my apologies for the extreme verbosity. It's always hard to keep it brief, but also supply all the problem symptoms.

And, fwiw, I've always gotten good email support here. I don't use it often, because I understand the resource realities, but when I have the responses have been pretty good. Thanks to JeffT, who was always the fielder.

[Jeff G.]

With IMAP, there are four methods of deleting:

1. Flagging. This is done by both OE and Eudora. The messages are still in the folder, but are flagged as deleted, and displayed as struck-out in both OE and Webmail.

2. Purging. This actually removes messages in a folder that are flagged as deleted. OE can do this, but Webmail cannot.

3. Moving to the Trash. This is done by Webmail as a part of the delete function, and is done by the various "Trash" functionalities of VER. The messages are moved from the source Folder to the Trash Folder.

4. Emptying the Trash. This is done in Webmail by clicking the "Empty Trash Folder" Link while viewing the Trash Folder.

[Craig]

Yes, that is my understanding of how it works. And it does seem to be working now that I have the numbers of files in SpamCop mail folders for the account in question down to reasonable numbers.

Of course, the larger issues of dealing with crammed SpamCop Mail folders remain.

Anyway, thanks for taking time to post the info.

This post has been edited by Craig: Feb 14 2004, 02:14 AM

[Jeff G.]

With IMAP, there are four methods of deleting:

1. Flagging.  This is done by both OE and Eudora.  The messages are still in the folder, but are flagged as deleted, and displayed as struck-out in both OE and Webmail.

This is still true. In addition, it can be done by Webmail using the "Deleted" marking option (and undone using the "Undeleted" marking option), but only if the "When deleting messages, move them to your Trash folder instead of marking them as deleted?" Checkbox is checked. That Checkbox can be found in "Webmail / Options / Mail Management / Deleting and Moving Messages".

2. Purging.  This actually removes messages in a folder that are flagged as deleted.  OE can do this, but Webmail cannot.

Actually, Webmail can do this using its "Purge Deleted" Link, but only if that Checkbox is checked. Both products can also hide the messages that are flagged as deleted (in OE, uncheck "View / Current View / Show Deleted Messages"; in Webmail, click the "Hide Deleted" Link or use Alt+T).

3. Moving to the Trash.  This is done by Webmail as a part of the delete function, and is done by the various "Trash" functionalities of VER.  The messages are moved from the source Folder to the Trash Folder.

Webmail can do this, but only if that Checkbox is not checked.

4. Emptying the Trash.  This is done in Webmail by clicking the "Empty Trash Folder" Link while viewing the Trash Folder.

Webmail can do this, but it only matters if that Checkbox is checked (otherwise, there won't be any emails in the Trash).

This post has been edited by JeffG: Apr 1 2004, 02:44 PM

[amenex]

Hello Jeff & Craig !

FWIW, this "feature" appeared only just this morning in my paid
SpamCop account. When I carefully selected all the spams
(unchecking a response to an eBay phish from abuse[at]rr.com)
and clicked on "Report as Spam" the selected messages all
remained in my Held Mail folder but appeared highlighted in
blue or some other unrembered color with a strikeout through
the Subject and Header lines. This has never happened before,
and I have not changed my OS (W98SE) or email client (Mozilla,
very recent if not the latest). Therefore, in my humble opinion,
someone has changed the coding for the site without testing for
new "features."

Hope you guys get it right again before my Held Mail folder gets
too full.

Note: I was able to find this thread through the Web interface of
SpamCop. Nice.

Best regards,
George Langford
amenex

[FrankC]

This also happened for me this morning for the first time (i.e. emails are not actually deleted - just appear in a different color and with strikethrough)

However, there is a 'Purge Deleted' option at the right-hand side of the screen which deletes the ones with 'strikethrough'.

Looks like there's been some change to the default options, as I didn't change it myself.

[amenex]

Hello Craig & Jeff !

Wow. Ya bitch about sumpin' and it gets fixed.
When has that ever happened before ? And I
thought that I had done pretty well by adapting
to the new "feature." It was even working OK for
me, too. Now I gotta go back and remember the
old way.

Now consider this: Whenever SC goofs up and the
checked spam items do not get reported correctly,
emptying the Trash folder produces the reply, "Trash
Folder Already Empty." And so I try again ... and
get the same reply. So I do it again, with the same
result ... and a third time - oh,oh, that was my Inbox.
And sure enuf, it works this time, and I have just
reported all my buddies as spam. So what really
needs fixed is that "spamcop encountered errors"
thing which is incomprehensible to me. The newly
disappeared "feature" at least reduced the chance
of that happening again. Oh well.

Best regards,
George Langford
amenex

[Craig]

Hmmm. In my SC webmail configurations, "When deleting messages, move them to your Trash folder instead of marking them as deleted?" has been selected since forever. Sometimes though deleted (or quick reported in the Held folder) messages do appear as struck out. This does not happen often. I have not noticed a Purge Deleted control. I'll look next time.

I figure that the rare occasion of marked deleted (strikeout) instead of actual moving to Trash might be some IMAP glitch between the webmail and the actual mail server. Just guessing.

anyway, even if I can't get the marked deleted messages to go away, after awhile they seem to do so on their own, iirc..

Main thing is, I think, is do not let folder contents get up into the thousands.

[Jeff G.]

Webmail ... [messages can be made to appear "struck out" (deleted)] using the "Deleted" marking option (and undone using the "Undeleted" marking option), but only if the "When deleting messages, move them to your Trash folder instead of marking them as deleted?" Checkbox is checked.  That Checkbox can be found in "Webmail / Options / Mail Management / Deleting and Moving Messages". 

Sorry, I got the logic wrong. If that Checkbox is checked, Deleted messages go to the Trash and you don't get to Purge or Hide them. If it isn't checked, Deleted messages stay where they are and get "struck out" (marked as Deleted), and you can Purge, Hide or Show them.

DATA LOSS WARNING: If you want to keep any deleted messages in a particular Folder, DO NOT USE WEBMAIL TO DELETE ANY MESSAGE IN THAT FOLDER OR IT WILL MARK THAT MESSAGE AS DELETED AND THEN AUTOMATICALLY PURGE ALL OF THE DELETED MESSAGES IN THAT FOLDER INSTEAD OF JUST MARKING THAT MESSAGE AS DELETED. I just learned this from experience the hard way, and I am not pleased. I consider this a bug, inconsistent with the implied "When deleting messages, mark them as deleted instead of moving them to your Trash folder" unchecked status of that Checkbox.

[Wazoo]

How and where should this be in the FAQ here? Strictly a "webmail" issue (via a web browser) or is IMAP access involved also?

[Jeff G.]

It's only a problem if you use both Webmail and another IMAP Client, or if you use Webmail and like to keep reported and deleted Held Mail around for a while.

This post has been edited by Jeff G.: Dec 17 2004, 01:58 PM

[Jeff G.]

Furthermore, when Webmail is applying filters to one's Held Mail Folder, if a message is deleted or is just moved to another, it will purge your Held Mail Folder silently and automatically, and there's nothing you can do about it. The "Purge Deleted" Link is there for a reason - this function should not be performed automatically without notice. I've had it with Webmail's cavalier purging of my data, and I'm going back to use of the Trash Folder by checking that Checkbox.

[Jeff G.]

My experiences detailed above are included in my new FAQ Entry: Webmail: Deleting and Moving Messages.